Opinyon ko atbp..

I am always really frustrated. I want to do more, be better, but I always end up caving in to nerves. I am taking a communication class now. It’s fun and all but I cannot express myself properly. My hands fidget, I stutter, I spit bullshit to cover up my lack in confidence. I fell like humor is my handy cover up when answering any question thrown at me. I am always lacking. I am never satisfied with my performance in the class. How do you even communicate effectively?

There are instances that I just want to float away from my seat. I wanna be a free soul cruising the halls of the building to find answers to the questions that I never seem to form when I want to ask them. I wanna be a curious student who seems to know what he wants to know. I want to be competent enough for myself. I want to be critical. I want to be profound. But I always seem to not make that happen.I want to exist as I see fitting. I want to feel. I want to experience. I want to not be nervous. I want to see myself grow. I want to know.

It’s hard. I am complicated. I am so lost. I don’t want to be found because I am not hiding, I want to be unseen from the deep hue that is blurring my existence. I want to allow myself to be noticed. I want to be heard.

I can still remember the first time I watched a BuzzFeed video on Youtube. It was one of those boring afternoons (every summer afternoon is boring by the way) when I stumbled upon a page (maybe) sharing something with “Americans”, “Filipino”, and “food” in it’s title. I got hooked instantly! What’s more attention grabbing than those three words for a young Filipino who’s been immensely influenced by everything and anything with America in it and is very, VERY fond of eating? I dove in without any hesitation. Apparently it was about BuzzFeed employees tasting some Jollibee. Fast food. Pftttt. Anyway, it lead from one thing to another and I now resort to their Youtube channel for entertainment. They have good content, for me at least. I get satisfaction from their witty and sometimes funny videos. Their videos are bold, I know, their adults but I get a lot of information from them and I think sometimes I get too much. WAY TOO MUCH

I recently learned something from buzzfeed. Popcorn. Butter is usually added to them while they are hot. (But I don’t do popcorn. I eat rice with ulam for meryenda. Hahaha!) I learned a new word from that video, “truffle butter.” I guessed at first that it must be expensive because truffles are freaking expensive. I learned that from cooking shows 😉 and that truffle oil stinks and will ruin your food if you don’t have proper knowledge of using it, that was from Masterchef. You shouldn’t bitch around Gordon Ramsay if you don’t want to be called an “Idiot Sandwich”. I thought that the truffle butter in the video was truffle mixed with melted butter like those compound butter with herbs that’s used on steaks but NO! Boy, was I wrong! I didn’t expect that! TOTALLY!

An idiot sandwich

Truffle butter is apparently a slang term slowing making it’s way to many people’s vocabulary. I will define it here for information purposes. There are several definitions in urbanditionary.com and I chose a less vulgar and offensive definition. Here goes:

Truffle Butter-Something so disturbing, you don’t even want to know what it means. Jake: Dude, what’s ‘Truffle Butter’ mean?? Eli: Bro, don’t even ask. by Birkner23 March 29, 2015

If you really are curious, click “shame on me.” You can hear the word in one of Nicki Minaj’s song titled “Truffle Butter” what else? Shocker. Anything with Nicki Minaj’s name on it becomes BIG. Sometimes literally, if you know what I mean *grins* It’s quite disturbing though but I can’t unsee it now. The damages have been done. I’m injured inside. THE INTERNET IS VERY POWERFUL.

Aside from truffle butter, youtube videos have occupied me this summer. I’m so into youtube even though I don’t make videos myself. The entertainment industry is boomming then and especially now. Everybody’s into the internet. I learn stuff from videos, a little maybe. I will continue to do youtube because I recently declared myself as a visual learner. I tend to remember more than just simply reading it out of context. Summer is a bliss.

And oh by the way I will kill two more months of vacation! I’m going to college!!! U-nibersidad ng Pilipinas! U-NIBERSIDAD NG PILIPINAS! I’m sorta excited and nervous at the same time. I didn’t expect that I would get into my dream school. I’ll talk about it in another post because I have a lot of kwento soon. I’m turning conyo na. Nooooo! Toodles.

I totally hate brownouts, blackouts, and the like. Being an internet person and all, I don’t like them at all! For you people in the big cities, it is seldom experienced because of businesses, hospitals, and institutions which are power dependent. As for the minorities, especially here, it is dreadful, literally . If a sudden change in the weather is observed like a drizzle or cloudy skies together with a little wind, expect a shitty power interruption! Every time! Sometimes our lights would be like Christmas lights! On, off, on, off, and freaking on again.

But I saw a different side to this annoying problem. All the good memories came flooding in 😀 The childhood days slowly unfolded because of another brownout recently 🙂 I just saw myself listening to old stories and “tsimis” in the porch with my relatives. All the laughter, smiles (even though it’s dark), and the bond strengthening. With the aid of a cloudless and well lit up sky, I was smiling in a corner reminiscing.

I remember how my Lolo told us how he managed to get himself to school. He stopped for 2 years just to support his college education. He would go fishing, run errands and other stuffs. He also told us about how his father encountered mystical creatures while working. Aswangs, tyanaks, a mysterious ship (without a crew) that would light up the sea and the whole barangay back then when no electricity is available, and other mysteries that is now part of the past and is passed from generation to generation of story tellers.

My Lola on the other hand would tell about her big family. How she grew up and the fun of having many siblings. She said that we are lucky enough today because our parents can send us to school and how she only manages with a 5 cent allowance in her elementary days. And the enders are always our childhood mishaps, our silly mistakes growing up. Those never get out of style and never gets old 😀

Instead of planning an assassination to the electric company screwing my day I would calm myself and do something productive with my time. But when I need to do something really important and it requires electricity I throw horrid words their way! Hahahahahahaha! I’m just kidding but I really do that a lot. With this, I strongly believe that everybody needs a break from all of the electrically dependent stuff. You should try it, it’s fulfilling and good for you. We need a brownout every once a while, like once every six or seven months! Hahahahahahahaha! 😉

As Cebu Pacific flight 5J 774 slowly descends to Cebu-Mactan International Airport, I couldn’t resist but to compare the province beneath me now, Cebu, with Manila which I left just an hour ago. Their night lights were significantly distinguishable. Manila’s were far brighter and concentrated than Cebu’s which are dimmer and farther from one another. With this observation, I wanted to further explore the whole province of Cebu especially Cebu City. Intrigued and excited at the same time, I have been dreaming of this moment for some time now.

12:35 AM, we have landed at Cebu-Mactan International Airport, Lalu-Lapu City. The aiport is nice, beautiful in fact. It is the second busiest airport in the Philippines and one of the top 20 airports in the ASEAN region in 2011 which I have seen for myself. The people of Cebu were really nice but I can’t understand Cebuano. I do recognize some of the words because of my ‘bisaya‘ mom. I would always see her with our other relatives laughing in a corner about something that I don’t totally understand. I have always wanted to learn the Visayan language because of its simplicity and complexity at the same time. It fascinated me because it comes in many varieties, starting with Ilonggo, Waray, Boholanon, Cebuano, and the list goes on and on.

We continued our little excursion in Cebu City. I was really amazed. The streets were clean, high rising building are everywhere, the traffic system is very smart, the architectures are just plain beautiful, and everything looked very sophisticated. It is the center of a metropolitan area called Metro Cebu, which includes the cities of Carcar, Danao, Lapu-lapu, Mandaue, Naga, Talisay and the municipalities of Compostela, Consolacion, Cordova, Liloan, Minglanilla and San Fernando. With the modernity that I have observed it is still hard to believe that Cebu City is the oldest city in the Philippines. A fast rising and beautiful city in its own terms.

“Ang ganda.”, “Sobrang ganda.” and “Dito na lang tayo tumira,” these kept escaping my mouth especially when we went to Ayala Center Cebu. This was the first Ayala Shopping Center located outside of Metro Manila which was opened in 1994. It is chic and modern and is surrounded by big buildings which I think are condominiums. It recently had a major renovation which unveiled “The Terraces”, a 600-million project. It housed high end boutique and stores that is collected in a lagoon like surrounding. I was totally blown away! It exceeded my expectations, big time!

I thought that Cebu City is the perfect city but I was obviously wrong. Where there is a beautiful side there must be a not-so-beautiful side. Everything needs balance and Cebu City is a part of everything. I saw Cebu City’s other side later that day. And it somewhat shocked me because I really thought that I have seen something perfect. Bustling streets with speeding cars, tons of crossing pedestrians without a proper pedestrian lane and slum like areas, these are what I have seen while crossing the poorly lighted road running for my own life. It was smoky but bearable. I should be used to it by now because Metro Manila is a little bit worse.

I have been to Cebu, smelled the air, felt the vibe, walked the sidewalks, met the people, and loved it totally! It took me just a day to fully appreciate its beauty. And I know this wouldn’t be my last visit because I want to see its development through the years and maybe, just maybe Cebu City will be my own little paradise in the future.